


Swan Song

by maydei



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending: Swan Song, Character Death, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Fallen Angels, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maydei/pseuds/maydei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The star shines brightest just before it goes dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> Historically, a "Swan Song" is the last, most beautiful song a swan sings in the moments before it dies. 
> 
> Take that as a warning. ~~Goodbye, I have broken my own heart once and for all.~~

His eyelids fluttered. His face was streaked with blood, bleeding from every open wound along his hairline, peeling patches of red and raw skin. He felt the pain, now, and suddenly understood humanity that much more. It was no wonder that they avoided this at all costs. Lucifer could not begrudge them that anymore.

He was dying.

Better to die free than live in a Cage.

Because asking Michael to stand with him was his _last_ stand. Lucifer never intended to fight his brother. He wanted Michael and he wanted Sam, and he should have known that he couldn't have both.

He wasn't conscious. He wasn't even _Sam_ anymore, not really. Here, inside of Sam's mind, he was Nick, and he was dying.

Sam was watching, horrorstruck.

“Sam,” he managed to force out through his broken voice. With tremendous effort, he lifted his arm the barest inch. Sam watched the movement with wide eyes, uncomprehending. Shocked. _In_ shock. But Lucifer needed him to listen—now, of all times. He needed Sam just now, just this once. “Please,” he whispered.

Sam didn't know. Sam couldn't know, and Sam didn't owe him anything at all. Lucifer owed Sam the world and would never be able to give it to him, not in person.

Sam took one small step forward, hatred warring with horrified confusion, and Lucifer sighed a soft breath of relief. Like once, like always, Sam would not turn away from someone who needed him, even if they didn't deserve it.

Sam approached warily and crouched by Lucifer's side. The world around them was white to all horizons; they were figures suspended in space with no up or down, no gravity, impossible astronauts of a more biblical variety. It was sterile and uncomfortable, but it was also peaceful. Lucifer much preferred the white to the endless black—but most of all, he preferred Sam.

“What's happening?” Sam asked, his voice raw from the hours and hours of screaming inside his own head.

Sam knew what was happening. Lucifer didn't answer. Instead, he held out the object grasped desperately-tight in his trembling fingers. “Take it,” he said quietly, tasting blood on his tongue. He coughed. “Please don't throw it away.” He hated pleading. “It's yours. Please keep it.” He could only hope that Sam would.

Sam was bewildered as he held out his hand. He blinked slowly as the stone dropped into his palm, glittering-blue and freezing. It was clear, nearly the size of a golf ball. The white light around them reflected from its multi-faceted surface.

There was a deep crack right down the middle; not quite enough to split it in two. But when Sam traced his finger over the fissure, it was rough and sharp. Sam hissed as it drew a drop of blood to the tip of his finger, which smeared against the stone. Without warning, it began to glow, and seemingly drank in the blood with greed and gusto.

The cut on Sam's finger knitted closed and left not so much as a scar.

“What is this?” Sam asked, eyes wide.

“Yours,” Lucifer repeated, his cracked lips twitching up into something he might have called a smile once, a very long time ago.

Sam stared at him then, all pleading hazel and kicked puppy and the barest hint of suspicion that tied it into something resolutely _Sam._ “You're giving up,” he said.

It wasn't a question.

“I'm making a choice,” Lucifer corrected gently. His arm fell to his side again and the relief was strong. He was tired. He was so old and _so tired._ Try as he might, he was no longer young and full of fury, especially not since he was made one with this slip of a beautiful boy that loved as fiercely as he himself had once done. Lucifer had promised everything to Sam, everything Sam wanted. His family, his friends, his lost lover—and Sam had said _no_ to it all, because he knew it wasn't the way. Despite the fact that Sam knew he couldn't have these things, he never asked for anything. Never wanted anything from Lucifer, even if it was the one thing he wanted most of all.

He'd thought it unattainable, so he'd never bothered to ask.

“Remember,” Lucifer rasped faintly, using a massive last-ditch effort to brush his fingers over Sam's forehead, “...that you are loved, Sam. Always so loved.”

Sam's eyes took on an odd, stubborn sheen. He set his jaw. “You said—you said we were made for each other,” he said, and couldn't seem to help the trembling of his lips. Lucifer had never seen anything quite as fascinating in its fragility and strength as Sam right then. He was the perfect picture of uncertainty and stubbornness, wrapped up in long limbs and a beautiful face. Sam bit his lip. “You said we were fa—family.”

Lucifer smiled just a little, impossibly exhausted. He felt Sam's arm wind around his shoulders and hold him at least partially-up. It was an admirable but futile effort; Lucifer was all but dead weight and he knew it. “You were prepared to do this for Dean,” Lucifer said quietly, hints of his True Voice creeping in around the edges. “Throw yourself away to spare him the pain of killing a brother. Is it impossible to think I'd do the same?” Lucifer might have laughed if he were able.

“Michael condemned you,” Sam hissed, momentarily forgetting which side he was on.

“And I am liberating _you_ ,” Lucifer murmured. He settled his head against Sam's arm, soaking up the residual warmth of his soul, a final comfort. He wanted so badly to close his eyes. “If I die, the Apocalypse is done. Michael will not seek Paradise until the Final Judgement. You will live your life out with exactly what you had before, and you will be welcomed into Heaven. No more war. No more hiding. I find it unlikely that angels will ever bother you again, except for maybe your Castiel.”

So _tired._

“And, what?” Sam asked, his voice breaking somewhere in the middle. “I get to live my _normal life_? You want me to go back after knowing what _this_ is like?”

“You'll never be without me, Sam,” Lucifer said, his eyes resting significantly on the gem clutched in Sam's hand. His will to keep his head upright was starting to fade. “You will never be alone. You will never have to run away again—I'm already there.”

That glimmer in Sam's eyes grew into undeniable tears, but whether they were from fury or something else, Lucifer would never be entirely sure.

“You—” Sam hissed. “You put me through all this—just so you could—you could—”

Lucifer didn't have an answer. “You were never mine,” he said instead, vision blurring and starting to go dark. His tongue was heavy and metallic in his foreign mouth. “I was always yours.”

Sam might have sobbed.

The Morning Star went out.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam awoke with a start, flat on his back and staring at the sky. His face was wet with tears. Dean hovered over him uncertainly, face whole and untouched, eyes alight with hope.

Sam lifted his head. In his hand, there was a small, cracked gem.

Across the clearing, Michael's eyes were fixed dead on it.

Sam tried not to cry at the aching chasm in his chest, but the harder he gripped the stone, the more manageable it became. “I hope you're happy,” Sam said quietly, tensely, through gritted teeth.

Michael didn't quite meet his eyes. “Aren't you?”

“Well, you're still here,” Sam replied in the most vicious snarl he'd ever managed; even Dean seemed taken aback—and wary. “Go _home_ , Michael,” he snapped. “You didn't win today. I think it's time for you to go.”

Michael's borrowed eyes lingered on the stone clenched in Sam's hand. His gaze was distant when he replied quietly, “I know.”

“Take Adam back,” Sam demanded bitterly. “He and his mom. You take them back home. You make sure they're safe. He gets to go to med school. He gets to _live_. And if _anything_ tries to ruin him, you'll cover him _personally_.”

Michael inclined his head. He still didn't meet Sam's eyes. “Consider it done.”

Sam swallowed heavily. “Get out.”

Michael disappeared.

“Sammy,” Dean murmured urgently, gripping Sam's shoulders with bruising strength, searching his face for any remaining trace of Lucifer. “What the _hell_ , man? I thought he was going to rip your heart out, and then—”

“He did,” Sam whispered, leaning into Dean's shoulder. His body shook. He would not cry. He had no sympathy for the devil.

None at all.

“He did,” Sam repeated, and clutched the gem close to his chest while he sobbed.

 

 

 

 


End file.
